


Beorn

by Lestenna



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Making Lore Up As We Go, The Carrock (Tolkien)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 22:17:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20365996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lestenna/pseuds/Lestenna
Summary: For the Tolkien Summer Reverse Bang—inspired by art by hrymfaxe. Prompt: I am hoping that this will inspire some backstory/fic about Beorn and/or the Beornings of which there is precious little! How were they expelled from the mountains (if that is the one of Gandalf's theories you hold with), what is up with the Carrock, his/their relationship with the other peoples living in that area etc etc. I would love anything you can come up with!A brief imagining of Beorn's past, through his meeting with Bilbo and the dwarves and the Battle of Five Armies, and into the years that followed.





	Beorn

“My people were the first to live in the mountains, before the Orcs came down from the north. The Defiler killed most of my family… but some he enslaved. Not for work, you understand, but for sport. Caging skinchangers and torturing them seemed to amuse him.”

“There are others like you?”

“Once, there were many.”

“And now?”

“Now, there is only one.”

The little bunny flinched at his words, though it was hard to tell if it was because of the harshness of their tone, their raw and cutting meaning, or simply for the fearful countenance of the man who spoke them—and in his heart, Beorn didn’t care one way or the other which reason it was. He was not here to coddle anyone, nor round off the rough edges of the world and its truths. His wrists still bore the shackles of his captivity, and that alone was often enough to tell the tale of his past. 

There were not many coddling, rounded moments in _ that _ story, either. 

Still, as the great bear of a man watched the hobbit slink back into the pack of dwarves who were so miserably huddling upon his floor, he felt a small twinge of guilt. The creature was obviously a kindly sort—he had asked after Beorn’s people unknowingly and with no ill intent—and the little fellow seemed to be of a gentle nature not often seen around these parts. It had become an even rougher stretch of wilderness these last hundreds of years, the well-guarded edge of the Greenwood (or Mirkwood, as it was coming to be called) too far away to the east to afford the vales where he made his home more than a passing glance from the elves. The menfolk, his closest kin remaining, he supposed (though not without some distaste) kept to the south and the east, in lands where towers soared and horses roamed. Once upon a time they had called this land their own as well, and been allied with those dwelling here, but such alliances were old, tarnished, left forgotten in the untended dirt where they’d fallen long ago with ancient kings.

As for the dwarves, well. He could not help but grumble to himself as he looked them over, “I don’t like dwarves. They’re greedy and blind, blind to the lives of those they deem lesser than their own.” Let them glare all they liked—he knew his feelings better than most.

Beorn had never much cared to have them near at hand, though long ago it had been their steel and swords and axes that had kept the foul things of the mountains in check, kept the western flank of his lands safe from any who wished to cross it. But they were greedy things, and ever had been, and in their foolishness had reached out to grasp more than they had needed, and awoken foes beyond their power to subdue—again. Foes in monstrous form or fair, foes of the body or of the mind, for they had spurned their allies for the sake of treasure more than once in the world’s long past. Even when the dwarves were at their most amenable, they would rather dig and carve and rip at the land, fascinated with what lay, cold and lifeless beneath, than give a thought to any of the myriad of wonders walking and growing and flourishing upon the land’s surface. No, Beorn did not like dwarves, though long ago they had at least been not so terrible, and sometimes useful.

Now the _ bunny _, that was an entirely different sort of creature. At first, of course he had thought it only another dwarf, perhaps a runt or a child, still half-hairless and wide-eyed. The dwarves certainly treated him like one from time to time, growling in defense of the little thing like a gaggle of broody hens at the first sign of a threat (namely from himself or his dear animals). The smell was all wrong though, hints of sunshine and growing things buried beneath the sweat and soil of travel which they all carried with them. It piqued the bear-man’s interest, and over the days that followed, where the half-undesired party had continued to camp out amid his halls, he had attempted to get to know more of the strange not-dwarf’s nature. From a respectful distance, of course, at least at first.

A few days of hearty eating seemed to revive the poor wee lad, and he grew more amenable to conversation then, though still most of what Beorn learned was through blatant eavesdropping and not asking directly. The little bunny still half-quailed in his shadow, their disparate sizes making him visibly uncomfortable. A ‘hobbit’, he apparently was—not a _ rabbit _ , though the nearness of the thing made him smile—from far to the west, a land Beorn had never seen nor heard of, full of similarly tiny, voracious creatures who spent their days farming and partying and generally making merry. _ Like children after all _, he had thought to himself of them, though not unkindly. Children were often the best of any given race, not counting orcs or goblins, and he could easily see the little hobbit-bunny getting on quite well with any child of man or elf or dwarf, their shared wonder and curiosity left to flourish and not yet stamped out as was the case in many adults.

As the days wore on into one week and then the next, and Beorn heard more and more from his guests of their lives and travels, he found himself beginning to muse upon their proclaimed quest. He had no care, in truth, for the fate of the dwarves… but he found he did not much like the thought of the little bunny (_ a child _ , his mind still insisted, _ if only in size _) in danger that he had not brought upon himself. Still, it was not his place to stop them, and in the end he had bit down upon his words, leaving them to decide for themselves what to do. His twinge of feelings on the matter had come upon him so suddenly, were so unfamiliar that he found it upsetting rather than curious, and in a fit had stomped off to spend the better part of two days as a bear, snorting and snarling his way through the forest and rending any unfortunate orc that crossed his path.

The trouble of course was that he had not felt such emotions, such stirrings of a need to protect, to work _ with _ someone and not alone, in many, many years. He had buried those feelings of _ care _ long ago, with the bones of his people, and had thought them dead and gone as well. The fluttering return of such emotions stirred old, well-buried memories with their passing… he would rather have left them all unearthed where he’d planted them so long ago.

* * *

He could barely remember the smell of the grass or the feel of the wind in his hair after years in the stinking, filthy pits the orcs had forced him and his family into. He was certain as well that once upon a time his mother’s arms had not been so bony, so ridged with hard, rough scar tissue where they wrapped around him and held him to her breast. He had always felt so warm when she had held him, safe and at peace… but no more. Now even in the cradle of her arms he felt the cold seeping into him from the stone, and from his own despair. She shivered against him as much as he trembled against her, and nowhere, _ nowhere _ was safe here.

There were not many of them left now, and those remaining were not long for this world, he felt sure. Oh, his mother pretended to be strong for him, pretended that their prayers and fervent pleas to the great Huntsman would be heard, but he knew. He was not so young as to be fooled any more. The only one of the Valar they would meet any time soon was Mandos, in his halls across the sea. 

But his mother knew his moods too well, and when he grew grim and felt hope slipping, she would draw him into her arms, as if he was a child again, and not nearly a man grown, and whisper tales and songs into his ear, as she had done after every nightmare, every youthful injury or fear. Here in the depths of the mountains, where he felt like all memory of all kind and pleasant things had gone, she did the same, determined to remind him of who he was, and where he had come from, and that would be his shield against the harm that had been done to him.

“There is no record of where our people came from, Beorn, or just when they arrived within the valleys and hillsides that the world now calls the Anduin. So long ago fell their first steps into… our lands, that writing had not yet spread among the race of men. Our people were given no name by those who passed them by, those still following some yearning for the far west, for we called ourselves by none, and thought such things unimportant. We were ourselves, and we were in our home, and we did not care what any other tribe or clan might think to name us. 

“We did not look back when we cut away from the vast marching throng, we did not hesitate when we turned back as our people reached the greatest heights of the Misty Mountains, returning to descend back into the heart of the thick wilderness that grew around their roots—and neither did the greater host of men pause in their questing. They thought they were better off leaving those who would rather be wild to the wilds.” His mother had always chuckled as she told that part… back when she told it beneath the eaves of her own home, or the spreading branches of a tree. But here beneath the stone, there was no laughter—save that of their cruel masters.

“In truth, I think that most of the world has forgotten that it was our _choice_ to turn back. To leave the Edain, as the elves would call them, who went to join them on the western shores. Our people have gone uncounted among the Houses of Men, forgotten and apart, but do not mourn—our people’s fate was, for a time, a great blessing to us all, for we passed unseen beneath the eye of the great and evil powers of the First Age, and were left, as we preferred to be, alone to thrive among the wild places and untouched natural vistas of the pristine and unpopulated lands. We were left to forge our own paths and customs, and to find a united sense of _identity_, my son, that is… was…” and here her voice broke, her chest heaving against his ear as her thoughts no doubt turned to the countless of their kind that the orcs had slaughtered, or worse, dragged into the depths of the mountains as had been done to the few of them within the pit. 

One breath, two, and then she continued, so very strong and determined to remind them all of just who they were—what they were meant to be, outside of this miserable prison they now found themselves in.

Later, when she was dragged away, and her cries of suffering and pain replaced the sweet tale of history she’d wove, Beorn would strain to listen to them as well, clutching them to his heart like his people’s songs. For it was the sudden silence when her screaming stopped that he truly dreaded to hear. He could not bear the sound of his people’s stories or tales after she had died, nor even much later, when she had been at last buried beneath the cold and unforgiving ground. 

* * *

“Well. I suppose that’s it, then.”

He stared down his nose at the tiny, outstretched hand being offered up to him, pudgy fingers (thanks to his own supply of bread and cream and honey) grasping mildly to take his own, far larger and calloused hand, and give it what must have been a firm shake, as far as the hobbit could muster. “We really are grateful for all you’ve done for us. The food, the ponies, baths and beds…” Trust the soft little thing to think mostly of the comforts of his home, instead of the orcs and goblins Beorn had found upon his borders, still seeking the dwarves. Such an innocent thing… guileless, he seemed, naive and honest.

It was a nice change, Beorn realized, to be appreciated for something other than his fearsome demeanor and immense strength. The dwarves (all too busy now with loading up the ponies he’d lent them to bother to spare a ‘fare-thee-well’) had been as tight-fisted with their gratitude as they were with their gold, and had left the lot of their pleases and thank-yous to the silver-haired one. His recognition had come with the bitter scent of politics, of complex diplomacy that the bear of a man had never had a taste for—no, the buttery, simply sweet recognition the little bunny offered was far, far more palatable to the man.

For a long, long time he had let himself think that it was only the animals of the world, pure and innocent, that deserved his fondness and protection. Even in his darkest hours, freshly freed from the pits of darkness the orcs had dragged him and his people into, the creatures of nature had given him comfort and companionship and eased his tattered soul. Finding over the course of his guests’ stay that he would not mind rising to the aid of a _ person _ was strange, and jarring, and it had left him grouchy and testy for some days… until at length the same little hobbit had come to find him in his gardens, a wreath of flowers woven large enough to fit his head as man _ or _ bear, and he had had to simply sigh and accept that maybe, just maybe, some people weren’t all that bad.

Now the dwarves were leaving, and Beorn was _ thrilled _ to see the backs of them. No more halls filled with such snoring that drowned out the whip-poor-wills and nightingales; no more raucous table-banging at every meal, nor rowdy evenings full of drunken song instead of the chirp of crickets. And most important to Beorn, no more _ questions _ . No more suspicions when he failed to answer or share a story that he felt was his own, and not to be given freely or lightly. No more being treated as if he were the suspect one, when it was his own home the lot of them were hiding in. No, he would be very glad to be rid of the dwarves, and no more have to deal with foul things creeping at the edges of his lands in search of them… though he found himself unusually somber when he realized the hobbit would go with them. He would not have minded the little lad’s company a while longer; he’d admitted to himself by then that he was not so bad at all, and more humorous in his stuffy ways than grating. He was a well-mannered guest, and loved the flowers and creatures of his home as much as the skinchanger himself did. He’d just begun to share with him his planting habits, the wee bunny having been beside himself with want to know how he grew his blooms so large, and it had felt _ good _ to have someone to share his knowledge with. Knowledge that was all but lost now, with his own people dead and gone.

It would have been nice to share more knowledge with him. With someone who saw the value in it, and did not dismiss it just because there was no gold to be made, no fame to be won in working the land thus—though the hobbit had mentioned many times a desire to ‘stick that Lobelia’s face right in his tomatoes once he grew them doubly large again’, and something about a contest… Still, it was a simple aspiration, and Beorn had _ wanted _ to share. Had spent more time thinking of his people’s traditions and methods than he had in a very long time, the better to explain them. Had rather enjoyed imagining seeing what wonders of the earth the little bunny could get to growing, though he had no idea just who or what a Lobelia was.

And now, almost without warning, he realized their time together was done. Where the dwarves went, the hobbit went, and while Beorn did not mind the loss of Thorin and his Company, he was not so keen to see Bilbo go.

Just as he felt the tiny man’s grip on his hand go slack and slide away, he gave the little paw a squeeze, refusing to release him and ignoring his quick peep of alarm. As Beorn crouched down to look the wee fellow in the eyes and give his hand a good and properly firm second shake, Bilbo stared right back… for a moment at least, before he noticed the dwarrow-king’s scowling and calling for him, insisting they get going (and continuing his trend of blatant disapproval any time the little bunny spent more than a moment in the skinchanger’s company), and then gave a nod over his shoulder at his friends, a placating “I’ll be right with you” alerting Beorn that, much as he would like the hobbit to stay for longer, his time was quite short indeed.

He would just have to accept that the hobbit was moving on, and that he would be alone again, with only his animals for company.

“You are very welcome, little Mister Baggins,” Beorn rumbled, drawing the hobbit’s attention back around and watching as a slow smile began to blossom across the fellow’s round, child-like face. “Should ever you have need of my home or my help again, you have only to ask. Send a bird, if you can, and I will come.” The offer to aid him slipped out before the skinchanger could stop it, and though he felt somewhat flummoxed at the need to offer his services, he could not deny that it felt… right. Bilbo Baggins was a good soul, gentle and kind, but stronger than he knew… and he was only a very little fellow, after all. And Beorn knew better than most just how fragile the world’s wonderful, small, soft little things could be.

* * *

The orcs’ drums hammered through the tunnels like thunder—he still remembered thunder, and the feel of rain, he told himself—but even that was not enough to drown out the fervent, whispered prayers of the huddled figures around him. Chained together at the wrists and throats, they had been dragged from their cold crevice to huddle atop a circular slab of stone, an arena built for pain. Thick columns of curved wood and stone rose up around the edges, hemming them in like a cage of ribs, and the end of the chain that threaded through the shackles at their wrists, necks, ankles, had been staked down, pounded by a crude hammer into a crack in the rock. From beneath and around the platform flowed a sickly reddish light, and the reeking scent of smoke from who knew what sort of foul things being burned—and on that rising smog drifted the rumble of the orcish war drums, swelling louder and more ominous.

What few of his people were left now, perhaps some ten and two where once there had been nearly a hundred, would die this day. Without being told, they knew it to be true. Their frames had grown withered, their muscles shriveled and scarred by long work and the torments of their masters—too weak to work and too weak to make good sport, except as a sort of morbid sacrifice. They would die, here upon this stone slab. In the passing years they had seen their fellow captives, now long dead, being dragged in tatters from this place—those brought here had been forced to battle beasts and foul creatures, and even each other, always to the death.

Now something terrible was coming for what was left of their people, some new monstrous beast that would slaughter them all, and give the orcs one last bout of bloodsport before they needed to find new playthings. Beorn had seen it as they were hauled in: some gristly, huge, shabby creature chained heavily off to one side, with the shredded corpses of more than one orc or goblin at its clawed feet. A warg, he thought it must be; huge and savage, rusty red in color, or else stained by the blood of its victims. Such creatures were as unnatural as the twisted beings that rode them, and he felt no pity for the mangled, muzzled thing; no love as he would for a natural creature of the world. This thing would _ enjoy _ravaging its victims, ending them for good beneath its claws or between its teeth, and in the face of that certain death, what remained of his people had fallen onto their prayers one last time.

He himself had long since given up beseeching the Valar for aid. The day his mother’s screams had been silenced was the day when all words of honor and hope on his lips had gone to ash upon his tongue, never yet to return. But as he knelt there with the others, hearing the slide of chains and the scrape of the claws of his approaching death on the move, and the weeping and fear of the people around him, _ his _ people, the like of whom would never come again upon the world once ended here… he found his lips moving of their own accord.

“I have not called upon you for an Age’s time. You have done nothing to help my people before this, so I do not know why you would do now… But we loved you once.”

The drumming pitch grew higher, more frantic, and he could hear the great beast growling as its shackles sparked, broken free beneath the jagged blades and mauls of the jeering orcs. 

“We worshiped you, and all you treasured. It was in your name, _ O Great Horn-Blower _, that we refused to harm the beasts and birds, that you might have the only right to hunt or take them.”

He could see the light reflecting sickly-green within the warg-thing’s eyes as it was herded towards them, amid the flashing points of crude spears forming a path to drive it down onto the stone platform where they knelt in wait.

“We lived free, content among them, and cut monuments of stone to the creatures you adored.” 

The beast’s jaws parted, revealing gore-slicked fangs and dribbling spit, the monster slavering at the scent of easy prey tied and helpless, reeking of pain and fear.

“But why of all the creatures of the world is it only _ us _ that you disdain? No claws, no teeth to speak of; we are as helpless as the softest of your fauna, and yet you withhold your protection, all these years…”

The stone crunched under the warg’s claws as it reached the platform, those tethered nearest to it shrinking back, their prayers and pleas turned to cries of fear that spurred Beorn’s anger, his resentment, his rage yet higher. Why had they been forsaken? Why had they been ignored? He felt his fury like a living thing within his chest, burying the terror and pain of his wretched body beneath its red and wrathful tide. Fury at the orcs for taking his people as slaves, fury at the Valar for forgetting them simply because they were not among those who had gone west so long ago, longer than any of those about to die had even been alive to see, or any of the ten, twenty, more generations before them. And fury as well at himself, for not fighting back, and at least dying with the blood of his enemies in his teeth.

The warg bunched its legs beneath it, preparing to spring, the sickly red light reflecting green in its bloodshot eyes as they fell upon him, and caught his raging stare. For a moment the world hung, poised on a knife’s edge, still but for the shadowy figures of the goblins and orcs cavorting beyond the arena’s walls. All fell away as death loomed, all but his fury, and a desperate, frenzied will to, one last time, _ fight back _ before he died.

With a crescendo of noise—drums, screams, howls; the rattle of chains and the crack of bones all at once, and faintly, beneath it all (or perhaps only imagined), the pure note of a hard-blown horn—the moment broke. The warg sprang, its booming snarl rattling dust from the cavern’s ceiling as it opened wide to rend flesh and end life.

But it was not the soft and broken body of a man it found rising, fist raised in final defiance to meet its onslaught—it was a bear; huge and shaggy, and full of fury as it sank its claws deep, deep into the leaping beast’s black heart.

* * *

Beorn had expected the thrill of danger when the thrush had come, twittering of fire and death and fury. For all his efforts to rid the countryside of orcs and goblins, their numbers seemed to ever grow, and he could not be everywhere at once; could not safeguard each den and tree, much as he might wish to. Oft it had been quiet of late, the foul things’ attentions drawn elsewhere, and while Beorn did not know why their heads were turned away, he also did not dwell overly upon it. He had his own lands to tend, and he cared little, after all, for the people who lived outside the vales he guarded.

But when at last he bid the bird to calmly sit and sing its song, so that he might know where the danger was coming from, he was surprised to find it was not within his own lands for once that the threat was aimed. No, it was come upon the distant mountain, where now the dwarves he had bid good riddance to so many months ago lay in captive waiting, besieged on all fronts by men and elves, though the dragon (which he had thought the greatest threat to them) was dead and gone. The sum total of the gathered forces, all wrapped up in each other’s troubles and betrayals—that was the where the orcs and goblins meant to strike, and wipe them all out before they could regroup; they would take the mountain, and increase their foothold in the east… that was the main of the bird’s message. 

At first the bird’s song amounted to very little in the man’s heart. What care had he for far-off men and dwarves? The elves he had some respect for, though they were not what he would call friends. Their distaste for the orcs of the mountains was nearly as bitter as his own, and they made staunch allies, when they could be bothered. The loss of their protection to the east, the forest left to go fully wild, and not in the natural way of things… that was something worth his consideration. But it was still not his fight, not his battle to wage. If he left, his own lands might be overrun, and the animals that lived under his protection endangered. The last of his ancestral home gone, forever, because he abandoned it…

And so he was resolved to let the stubborn, greedy dwarves fend for themselves. Their lives amounted to less than the smallest of his honeybees’, he told himself; why, really the only one he’d care to miss, he’d mourn to know was lost was the little bunny—…

That thought stopped the bear of a man cold, his lumbering stalk back to his hut stalled to stillness midway through the field. The little bunny, the hobbit, had been quite kind to him. Friendly even in the face of his cold aloofness (at least at first he’d been standoffish, crude and blunt as was his nature), and wonderfully interested in the natural world. He had… enjoyed his time with the little Baggins fellow, and the thought of that innocent, child-like creature beset by danger, trapped beneath the halls of stone, hemmed in by orcs and goblins, wargs and trolls…

A surge of bile, backed by fury, rose up in his throat, erupting in a snarl more fit for his animal form than that of a man. He knew the torments that orcs and foul creatures could visit upon the innocent, the small and helpless. He’d seen what was left of _ little bunnies _ after a warg had gotten them between its teeth. He’d heard the wailing cries of those creatures meant most to flourish under the light of the sun and moon, trapped in the endless black night of deep caverns with no escape to be found. He’d _ made _ those sounds himself, long, long ago, beneath a different mountain. 

With a snort and a shake he stormed into his house, the door crashing open… and then slamming shut a moment later when he reemerged, nearly harsh enough to splinter the wood. Bilbo was his _ friend _—and while he might not care for the dwarves, as he’d told them before, I cared even less for orcs. It was no more his fight than the dragon had been, but the thought of his friend in such peril, which he intimately understood (instead of the more vague and unstoppable threat that the dragon had been), had turned his head. Or perhaps it was a thirst for vengeance, or to see the orcs destroyed, the mountains emptied at last, that spurred him on. Maybe he was just tired of languishing, alone and unfriended save for the animals, in his hidden home, in the end; caring nothing for hunting down any evil that did not cross his borders.

Regardless of what it was that finally drove him to action, he felt he could not sit still, could not stand idly by while danger and death befell the first actual friend he’d made since his childhood, and with a snarl, a thunderous roar of warning to all who heard it, the man leapt forth, his form twisting into that of a massive shaggy bear, his long claws raking gouges in the earth as he tore across the field towards the distant Carrock.

* * *

It had taken time to convince the eagles for their aid, and longer yet to reach their destination. The wind in the man’s hair had helped to calm him, to cool the fire of protective rage in his heart a bit, but even with the world whipping by beneath them, the mountain seemed to loom larger, closer, only very slowly. The great birds, servants of Manwë, and so allies after a fashion, had confirmed the warning the thrush had given him; the dwarves, and their hobbit with them, had been under siege within the now-dragonless mountain for something like a month, with the men of the lake town (which had been destroyed in the dragon’s final moments) swarming it its foot, demanding gold that had either been promised or withheld or both. Beorn gave a low snarl at the thought—it was always _ money _ , always _ gold _ , always _ greed _ with so many of the ‘civilized’ people of Arda. Even the elves fell victim to it, though he’d found theirs was more often a greed for pride and status than material wealth.

In all their greed, of course none of them had thought to look away from the mountain, to look behind, and now the marching hosts of evil would come upon them and catch them unawares. It would serve them right, perhaps teach them a lesson in what was more important than _ money _—ah, but the hobbit. He’d heard the dwarves talking to the little fellow when they’d visited. Knew the bunny was doing all this for the love of his friends, and not for money—perhaps the only one in all the lot, and with that kind heart, also most likely to suffer and die, needlessly, for it.

The forest slipped by beneath them, gave way to wide, barren plains, and in the distance he could see the glitter of the lake. Further on rose the mountain, and a swarming, cacophonous battle raging at its base—he smelled it before he saw it, and the stink of orc and coppery blood made his hackles rise, even in the flesh of a man and not a beast. It was impossible to identify individuals through the mess, though he could tell the glitter of the elves from the squat figures of the dwarves, and not even the ragged, dirty army of menfolk was as grim to see as that of goblins and orcs and other foul things as they swarmed over the bodies of the fallen, their own or otherwise.

Somewhere down in that mire was his little bunny friend, with no teeth, no claws, nothing but that little dagger of a sword he’d been dragging around on Beorn’s lawn those weeks ago to defend himself…

The eagle stooped, swooping lower over the battlefield, and at last Beorn was able to spot someone he recognized. Not the hobbit, no, but one of Bilbo’s dwarves—several of them, really, fighting back to back against the tide. With a pat of thanks to the eagle for bearing his weight so far and so quickly, the man threw himself from the bird’s back, the wind’s rush across his skin speeding as he fell, and then softening against his fur as he twisted, transforming mid-air in time to come crashing down, using his weight alone to crush the goblins he landed upon. Those who were near enough shrank back in surprise, but it was not long before they began to swarm, not even the fierce figure his bear form cut enough to dissuade them from their slaughter. That suited Beorn just fine—he hadn’t come all this way to keep his claws and teeth free of their black and brackish blood.

A swing of one mighty paw was enough to rip the head from a thrashing goblin’s body, sending it sailing like a child’s ball to roll away underfoot. In return he felt the prick of a spear against his flank, though his shaggy fur and thick hide were enough to turn all but the most determined of his foes’ attacks. With an ear-breaking roar he spun, looming to his full height above the orc that had thought to strike him as well as the warg it rode upon. For one moment the warg’s teeth showed white, flashing a warning, but then the main of the monster’s face was gone, cloven free of the rest of its body by another swing, leaving it to crumple beneath its rider in a gory heap. 

He carved his way towards where he’d seen the dwarves fighting from above, even his progress slowed by the sheer number of enemies standing in his way. The thought of letting those miserable creatures live once they had drawn in range was not one he would tolerate, even when he was of a calmer mind—here, now, in the heat of the fight and with his blood boiling from it, there was no stopping his attacks, no turning him from his drive to cut down as many as he could get his claws into. He could hear the dwarven war-cries growing louder as he went, booming brash and brassy even over the guttural howls of his foes. Thankfully he’d seen nothing of the hobbit… such innocent eyes were not meant for a wretched scene like this.

Then, over the throng, a cry rang out—exultant, triumphant, hideous in its power, halting even Beorn in his tracks. He _ knew _ that voice, that thunderous, evil sound. There was only one creature, on two legs or four, that could stir such black hate in the skinchanger’s heart. _ Azog _.

The pale orc had risen to power after the fall of those who’d chained his people had provided an opportunity. Since that day the lands around the Misty Mountains had known little much of peace, and for all the efforts of man, dwarf, elf and Beorn himself alike, none of them had managed to do more than mangle the monster, turning him even more deadly with the addition of his spiked metal claw, far stronger than his original limb of flesh had been. It was him who’d led the orcs from the mountains here, Beorn knew in an instant; he’d lost his arm to a dwarf, and it was a dwarf now that had fallen, crumpled and bleeding, at his feet. Bilbo’s friend, the surly one—Thorin, who would be king—lay broken, battered before the pale orc, his sword lost and his armor rent. As Beorn watched, Azog raised his spiked claw-fist over head, preparing to bring it down in a crushing, killing blow, his beady blue eyes fixed down, down, down upon his fallen enemy of old…

Azog never saw Beorn coming. Of all the orcs remaining in the Misty Mountains, the skinchanger wanted rid of _ that _ one the most of all… and while he cared not for the dwarf about to breathe his last beneath Azog’s maul, _ Bilbo _ did. And… that was what it meant, having friends, Beorn would later reflect. Doing things you didn’t particularly care about because you knew it would make your friends happy, and because you could. Still, in the moment he saw only the chance to rid the world of Azog’s menace once and for all, a chance to avenge his people, and Bilbo’s fallen friend… and he was more than happy to take it. 

Jaws wide, he charged the fixated orc, slamming into him from behind and driving him into the dirt. The great orc’s neck snapped beneath the bear’s sudden weight, but even then Beorn took no chances, putting his teeth to work just to make sure. In one lucky instant the fiend was dead, his pale eyes gone dull and vacant… but, somehow, the dwarf was not. A moan of pain alerted Beorn that, somehow, Thorin yet lived—and the furious screech of those orcs and goblins who had seen their leader laid low made it clear that unless they moved, the dwarf at least would not retain that state of living for long. With a crushing swipe the skinchanger drove back the swarming hordes, and with a gentler bite than might be expected of the bear’s strong jaws, he hefted up the limp and bleeding dwarrow, and carried him away, all the while keeping a sharp look out for his still-absent little bunny friend.

* * *

The fire burned low, the crackling wood all but spent in warding off the chill of the snow and the bite of the wind so high up upon the mountain. The gale drove tiny shards of ice like daggers into the gaunt, ragged man’s face and limbs, but he did not flinch nor turn from it. He had known far greater pains within his days, and this was nothing, nothing at all when the storm also brought such a sweet taste of clear and unspoiled air as he had not smelled in years. The bitter flecks of cold soon melted from his worn and battered hide as well, and in gathering drops washed the filth from where it was caked upon him: blood and dirt and ash and substances unnameable mired into a muddy brown trickle, and left only weathered skin behind.

It was a necessary cleansing—though he felt that nothing would ever fully do the job. He’d crawled forth from a dark crack in the stone hours ago, form half-twisted between that of man and bear, smeared with gore and certain that at least half the blood dripping from his shaking limbs was his own. He’d been certain that he’d die, though as the cool, sharp light of the sun left him blinking and dazed, he’d felt at peace. At least, at last, he’d escaped. 

He hadn’t quite understood at first, what had happened in the ring of stone. He’d only felt his fury burst forth, his pounding need to take as many of his people’s tormentors with him as he could when he finally fell… and the next he’d known, he’d had the warg’s throat between his teeth, dug his claws into its flank and _ ripped _. He could still taste the foul bitter tang of the beast’s blood from when it had gushed over his tongue… 

By the time he’d finished the warg the orcs and goblins had collected themselves enough to grab their spears and blades; it was the sharp bite of one of their points into his side that had distracted him from savaging the fallen wolf-thing’s body, and the screams of his people as they were swarmed that gave him the energy to forget his wounds and fight on. He’d crushed uncounted numbers beneath his paws, slammed them into the cavern’s walls and torn limbs from bodies in his righteous wrath. The sheer brute strength of his new form’s limbs, even emaciated as they were, was enough to snap the chains that had bound him to the others, and he had plunged into the goblin ranks with the abandon of one who already expected to die.

But before the killing blow had landed in his flesh, the remaining orcs had turned and fled, skittering into the depths of the holes they’d crawled from and leaving only the carnage behind. On weak, hobbled legs he’d dragged himself back towards the crude arena, the ebbing adrenaline and fury leaving him feeling exhausted and in keen pain from every wound he’d taken. Amid the rent and tattered carcasses of the orcs and their pet monster he’d found the remains of his people… each one cut down, their legs still chained, though it was some small solace to see that to a one they’d died with blood on their hands, and not gone into Mandos’ keeping without taking at least one enemy with them each. Still, it pained his heart to see—he was truly alone now, for however long he’d last.

Despite the urge to let himself lie down and rest, he knew it was not safe. His instincts had come raging forth as he’d slipped into the skin of the bear (though he still knew not quite what had happened, or how to undo it), and the odds that the remaining orcs would return was just too high. And so with a low, keening moan of grief, and a press of his snout to the nearest of his fallen kin, he turned, and fled up the cavern towards the distant scent of cleaner air. He’d collapsed into a heap when he’d breached the surface, exhaustion at last grown too heavy to carry on—if the orcs returned now and cut him down, at least it would be a swift passing…

He woke he knew not when, shivering and naked against the cold, his limbs those of a man and not a bear once more, and the sky turned pink and gold from either sunrise or sunset, he had no way to tell. Somehow he had not been discovered, and though his body hurt to the bone, his wounds and the long-carried strains of his captivity digging in their teeth, he felt a fresh urge to rise and carry on. As he scarpered down the craggy ledges and hauled himself along one narrow precipice of stone after the next, he let himself begin to think, to wonder. _ Why him? Why now? What had he done differently after so long that had finally drawn the Valar’s eye? _ He wanted desperately to be angry still with the Huntsman—why _ only _ him, and not them all?—but with the sun upon his back for the first time in so many years, he could find only a deep, aching graciousness inside of him. Understanding might come later; for now he was just glad to be alive, and free.

He took shelter for another three nights as he worked through the mountains before finally reaching the distant forest below. He’d thought he’d begun to recognize the area, somehow, in the final day, the stone seeming familiar, known to him, though he could not say when he would have seen it, or how he could have recalled it from so long ago. He let his feet take him as they cared to go, so long as it was away from the mountains and into the wilderness. By night of the fourth day, it dawned on him to, perhaps, try to change his skin again. The nights were warmer beneath the trees than they had been up in the crags, but it still was harsh upon his cloth-less form, and he’d heard wolves and other things moving between the trees in the black.

The change had been slow to manifest when he had attempted it, but every time thereafter it had been easier, as if he were only remembering how to do something, and not having to learn it for the first time. It was easy to move on all fours, and his fur was warmer, tougher than the simple flesh of a man. When some weeks later a roving patrol of orcs had chanced upon him, he had reached for that mighty skin within himself and drawn it on as easily as if he’d simply pulled a cloak about his shoulders, and made quick enough work of them all.

Time and distance passed unconsidered, and at length his body and mind began to heal, though still he skirted away from what civilized folk he found. Instinct kept him deep in the wilderness, and at last one day he found himself standing at the edge of a familiar field, a familiar hut, now in ruins, staring back at him from across the oasis of tall grass and flowers. The home would never be the same, of course—once the meeting hall of his people, now empty of all tenants but himself and a few stray mice that had come in from the fields; it seemed unnaturally quiet, though at least what memories it held were happy ones, and nothing of the grim decade most recently passed about them. 

The thought of finding others, having to explain what had happened, to relive it when he’d only just escaped it was anathema to the man, and he contented himself for a long time with putting his home to rights. Each orc or goblin he cut down as he eked out a territory was a satisfaction, and in time he came to appreciate the company of the animals he chanced upon, or saved from those who hunted them. They did not ask him questions, did not judge his unruly, aggressive state. They were a balm to his heart, though they reminded him of the strange new connection between himself and Oromë as well—he still had no idea why he could change his skin, why after so long his prayers had been heard. What the Valar might want from him in turn. If nothing else, perhaps the Huntsman would be pleased with the slowly dwindling number of goblins around the home he’d made for himself. He’d become quite willing and eager to run them down, hunting them across the lands to root them out, once he had the scent

It was on one such hunting excursion that he found himself at the feet of a familiar peak. A carrock, looming tall and proud, the stone’s natural shape having lent itself quite easily and long ago, before even his father’s father had been born, into being worked into the shape of a snarling bear’s head. He had never given much thoughts to the old monuments before he had been taken, but now they, or at least this one, seemed… special. A thought came to him as he sat a time at the foot of the tall rock, some inspiration or desire from he knew not where. He’d done nothing to thank the Horn-Blower for the gifts of his life and freedom, his new form and the strength that had come with it to hunt down evil. There was no one else now left of his people, to maintain and keep up these old monuments… and if nothing else, he decided he rather liked the resemblance it now bore to him.

Following the whim as any natural creature would do, he began to work the stone. Untouched since time an Age and more ago, he carved his mark upon the peak: a series of tall, craggy steps that let him ascend to stand atop the bear-mount’s head, or crawl between its open, roaring jaws. Within, sheltered from the rain and elements and away from prying eyes or reaching claws of fouler things, he built a memorial to his fallen kin. Their bones were long since scattered, lost forever beneath the mountains… but what scraps and fragments of their way of life he’d found within the old hut that now was his home, he brought and built into a pile near the back of the carrock’s, _ The Carrock’s _ throat, and scattered dried flowers and bits of honeycomb about them. 

It was far less than they deserved, but when it was done he felt a peace he hadn’t thought to find again come creeping into his heart.

* * *

Beorn had lingered around the mountain long enough to see the dwarf-king entombed beneath the stone he loved so much, and the crown he would have worn passed onto another head—this one less full of the greed for gold that had tormented the fallen monarch, at least at a glance. He’d seen the folk of the Iron Hills, moving in as if they owned the place—and perhaps some did, after a fashion, he could not be sure. And he’d seen the remaining numbers of the company that had passed through his halls so long ago huddle together, weeping and mourning, with the hobbit amidmost them all, eyes shining bright with unshed tears. 

In the end the little fellow had been injured, knocked out for most of the fight and left with ringing ears and a wobble for days after, though thankfully that was the worst of it. His friends had not been quite so lucky, and it showed in their scars and limps as much as in their reduced numbers. The leader and both of his young sister-sons had perished, never to enjoy the hard-won kingdom they had helped to restore, and it left the remainder of them clinging together at all hours, as if leaving one alone might cause them to vanish.

In the days following the battle, where the dwarf-king had lingered between life and death, had been very hard on his little hobbit friend. He’d been quite inconsolable, and though the rest of the dwarves had done their best to cheer him, their own sadness was so great that it often left things worse than they’d begun. Beorn himself had been somewhat at a loss for how to help, or if he even should—he’d come to see to it that his friend survived the fight, or at least was spared a long and agonizing death, but that had been done… and he did not know much of how to mingle with so very many people, especially those caught up in their grief. But at least he understood what it was to suffer loss, and was relieved to find that Bilbo was quite happy to see him, and he could offer the little fellow all the quiet support he needed—as well as carry him about the camp (though of course the hobbit continued to complain about being lifted) when his head wound made him soft-limbed.

The dwarves themselves hadn’t seemed to know what to make of him at first, the lot of them giving him little more than wary glances and cold shoulders, at least until word spread that it’d been the skinchanger who’d avenged their fallen king, had trampled the pale orc and ended his threat. Then they’d become almost cloyingly friendly, offering him food and drink and all manner of chances to join them at their fires. It was such a change from his usual solitude that it had turned him more grim and sour than the norm, and he’d nearly left off from the place entirely until he saw how the rowdy antics of the dwarves could, for a moment, chase the glumness from all the sad faces from those gathered, even the company, who’d lost so much.

Seeing the men and elves and dwarves all put their past aggression aside to help each other rebuild was somewhat mollifying of his opinions of them all as well. Perhaps, he was forced to think, not _ all _ men and dwarves were as greedy as he’d thought… and the elves not quite so haughty. In little enough time they’d pitched tents and begun clearing the fallen, and talk of trade and future prospects already filled the air, growing more and more enthused as the sadness of the battle faded over the days that followed. Soon enough all would be as it was before, he was sure—he knew even less how to fit in among the busying people than he did those in mourning—and he would be on his way as well, eager to return to his solitary ways.

Discovering that the hobbit meant to leave as well, to journey back into the west where he had come from, was a pleasant surprise for the skinchanger. He’d thought the little fellow meant to stay among the Company, the dwarves, live within the mountain, but it seemed it was not to be so. “Oh, they’re really all fine fellows—the best, even—but they’re not _ my _ people,” Bilbo had chuckled and told him as much when Beorn had asked about it. “And really, can you _ imagine _? A hobbit, living under a mountain? No, no… it’s back to the hills, back to the Shire for me—though I imagine I shan’t enjoy the journey back any more than I did the travel here. Less spiders and riddling though, I should hope…”

Beorn supposed that made sense. He’d hardly feel at ease beneath the mountain either—too reminiscent of memories he’d rather leave behind, though the sounds of cheers and songs and working hammers ringing through the halls were an odd comfort (perhaps because the _ noise _ of civilization reasserting itself was so very, very different from that of orcs and foul things howling in the deeps). The lands all around Erebor were withered and dead as well, lacking the flora or fauna that he was used to. In time it would recover—the wilds were ever resilient—but he would not miss these lands when he left them behind. 

“You mean to travel alone?” He found himself scowling at the idea, though he relented at Baggins’ raised brow—perhaps the journey had given the bunny claws after all. He certainly seemed much less wilting and timid than before, to the man’s amusement.

“Of course not! I’ll have Gandalf along, and a wizard I should think is plenty to keep away most troubles,” Bilbo huffed, as if affronted. “And not to mention, we’ve just gone and, and done away with half the orcs from Mordor to the Misty Mountains, haven’t we? I can’t imagine there’ll be many left to make trouble, much less with the stomach for it these days.”

That drew a dark chuckle from the skinchanger, and a shake of his head, shaggy hair tossing side to side. “That would be a mistake to think, Bilbo—they can be vicious when they’re hurt or cornered, and wizard or no, you’d make a tasty meal for the goblins that are left between here and your Shire.” 

“Well, well, then what would you propose I _ do _ , Beorn?” There was a note of fire in the bunny’s voice now—claws indeed, though not sharp enough to prick the bear’s hide with their frustration. “Stay _ here _ ? _ No _ , I _ can’t _ stay here, not without Tho—… not… without my armchair.” In a breath all the hobbit’s fire guttered, dying down to mere embers before Beorn’s eyes. _ Ah. _ He hadn’t… he’d never considered. Well. That put things into a clearer light of day. The poor bunny was grieving even more than he’d suspected. So no, he very certainly couldn’t stay here.

“I will go with you,” Beorn said finally, and with firmness that he’d hoped would brook no argument. Of course, the hobbit, contrary little thing that he was, went off spluttering about how ‘kind an offer it was, but surely unnecessary’, and while the man found it more hassle than he’d like to convince his friend of the wisdom of having more than just the wizard along, at least it served to distract the bunny from his woes. 

* * *

The journey back into the west was long. To Beorn’s dismay—though lesser was it now than it would have been before the battle—both wizard and hobbit were keen to march along in the company of the elves as they neared the forest. But he found the company of Thranduil’s people not as distasteful as he once had done; they were still proud and haughty, but they had fought together, and hated the orcs as much as he did, and had a respect for nature that most men and dwarves he found did lack. It was not a terrible time, and when at last they reached the eaves of the trees even the skinchanger found himself thinking it would be quite lonely and quiet with only the two for company thereafter.

Bilbo and Gandalf both refused the elvenking’s invitation to travel through the forest under secure guard. Beorn had heard, in the retelling of the hobbit’s travels, that he had come under some strife in passing there before, and he could understand the little bunny’s dismay at the thought of wandering there again. The wizard’s reasons were, as ever, known only to himself, but with the both of them quite set upon turning north and skirting ‘round the forest, there was little indeed Beorn could do to stop them. The barren lands beyond the woodland’s end were still the truly wild _ Wilds _ after all, and he had been honest when he had warned the hobbit of the dangers that he might face, even without goblins to hound his steps. While Beorn had no doubt as to the wizard’s ability to get them out of trouble, he still felt better about his small friend’s chances if he could lend his claws in the effort.

_ Not to mention _ , a very small voice mumbled in the back of his mind, _ he would be alone again, properly alone, if he left them. _

When had the thought of isolation changed from one that brought comfort and ease to one that left him feeling as itchy as a bear after hibernation? He had never minded being alone before—had preferred it, in truth, since he’d dragged himself free of captivity so long ago. Perhaps the change was due to the hobbit, he considered; for the days and weeks and months of their travels, he’d passed many hours and miles alike listening to Baggins’ talk of his (absurdly large) family and all the happenings of the Shire that rated as ‘gossip-worthy’ over the last years. Friendships, weddings, festivals, even his work (though Beorn still wasn’t quite sure just what it was that Bilbo _ did _, aside from riddle dragons and bebother dwarves) were topics of discussion, and the raw affection and love the little hobbit had for his people could be felt even if one had never met them.

Or perhaps it had started after the battle, when for once he’d been greeted with enthusiasm, and not trepidation, by all those whom he met. Certainly, his size and wild look still won wary glances, but to a one the dwarves and men and elves had done what they could to welcome him, as their friend and ally. Though the fighting had brought grief, it had sparked kinship as well, and he’d had ample time to watch and wonder at the sight of the three peoples uniting and working together, working to _ build _ something out of the ruins of so many lives that had been lost.

In truth the start of the change had probably begun as far back as the day he’d met the hobbit, he resolved one night as they sat huddled around a fire. They would be back within the lands he named as his own within a few more days, and he was ready to be home again. _ This _ , he knew, was where it had started. People on his lands, in his home—he’d not kept company for more than a few moments with a single soul in years by that point, and to suddenly find himself unwillingly swarmed? At the time he’d been furious, determined to see the backs of the interlopers and be well rid of them… but then, as the days had passed, he’d begun to warm (or at least to start to thaw) to the feeling of _ life _ they’d brought to the quiet home. Oh, some he’d rather found irritating—though it was poor manners even for him to think ill of the dead—but others had been tolerable. Nice. Enjoyable. And the little fellow nodding off against his knee was one of them, that much was sure. 

With one great paw he reached out to pull the hobbit’s blanket from where it had fallen down, tugging it back up over the little chap before he rose to bank the fire. Little bunny ought to have been growing in fur, not claws, and with it being midwinter or thereabouts, the sooner they got back to his hut the better. Still, even with the adventure of the road and the poor weather, Baggins seemed the better for it. Time and distance had begun to heal his heart, much as it, at last, had done for Beorn’s. Bilbo’s fond talk of his people grew fonder and fonder; he was ready to be _ home _. 

They wintered together in the skinchanger’s hut, making merry and enjoying a quiet Yule with ample cream and honey. The animals had kept busy in Beorn’s absence, and while he was sorely happy to see them, and glad they were unharmed, already he knew on some level that things would not be as they were. He loved his animal friends no less, of course, but they were of simpler minds than those he had shared his time and thoughts with lately… and while they were dear to him, they were not family. Not his own kind. Still, he was determined that they must be enough, for hadn’t they been before, for years?

When the time came for Bilbo to leave, the wizard keenly eager to get him home again, Beorn saw them off. Once more he trailed along with them, both as a bear and a man, until they reached the Carrock. There was where he left them, watching as they scaled up into the Misty Mountains from atop the carved stone’s peak, and even after they slid out of sight he remained, turning his thoughts over and over in his mind and savoring the silence as it fell back in around him like a soft curtain of rain. There still was contentment in that quiet mood, but now a strand of discontent threaded through it that had not been there before. He would very much like, he realized at length, to be able to return to his home after this still moment, and find it lit up and full of life and sound, as it had been the winter through. But it would not be so, could not be so, and in the end, rather than return to that black and silent hut, he spent the night as a bear, denning down at the back of the Carrock’s maw, nestled near enough to the pile of relics and trinkets he had left there a lifetime ago to see the starlight reflecting in each dust-tarnished surface.

Life returned to as it had been thereafter. Spring came on fast, and the man tended to his fields, his flowers and his bees. He roved among the trees in his shaggy fur, and by night paced the borders to keep the dark things (which had not been driven fully out, could never be driven out, most likely) at bay. The ponies he had lent to the dwarves a year (an Age) before brought their foals into the world, and the birds sang nesting songs as they stole twigs and stems and bits of his shedding winter fur to pad their broods. Summer came on, hot and heavy, and when roving near to the forest he heard the distant sounds of elves at their singing, he did not growl and storm away, but instead sat and listened for a spell. Autumn followed swiftly enough, the leaves and grasses turning colors and all the plants come to full ripeness nearly bursting, begging to be collected, though as ever he had more than enough to feed himself and his animals… and a shame indeed it was to let the rest go to waste, though he took some solace in that nature would reclaim the fallen fruit and forgotten herbs, and build an even larger batch the next year.

One day, with the smell of ice and frost come again on the wind, he was quite surprised to find a letter waiting for him in the beak of a rather frazzled looking raven, who’d kicked up quite a fuss upon his porch when there was no one there to greet him. The parchment folded neatly in the packet smelled of sunshine and lush growth, a breath of eternal summer amid the waning days of the season, and even without seeing the name scrawled in looping script at the bottom of the last page, Beorn knew instantly who it was from. It took him longer than he’d care to admit to dig up paper of his own to reply on, and he had to beg a feather from one of the birds that nested in the eaves of the hut, but at last and with a smile he was able to reply—“To the Little Bunny Baggins”.

They traded correspondence through the years that followed, their letters slow but consistent, and never had the skinchanger a bad day when he found the raven (whom he learned had come originally from Erebor as well, though he had fallen into Bilbo’s explicit services thanks to the abundance of tasty offering the hobbit kept on hand for him) waiting with a scroll or packet on his front steps. Their connection served to ease the man’s growing sense of restless loneliness for a long while, his heart content with only that company, which had first aroused him to want for anything beyond the twittering of birds and the bleating talk of his sheep. He could still lose himself in the wider world from day to day, and on those evenings he found himself missing the chatter of a hobbit (and even a wizard, at times) at his fire, he could pull out a scrap of parchment and write.

Still, that was not enough forever, and to the man’s frustration he found that even the beauty of nature around him had begun to dim in the days where he felt the crushing ache of the emptiness and quiet around him. Within a decade of the Battle of Five Armies he began to find raiding parties of goblins and orcs within his lands, and a general sense of ill-tidings began to grow in his heart. Indeed the forces of darkness were slowly stirring once more, and as with all wild creatures he sensed it like an earthquake, not yet reaching the surface but building steadily beneath his feet by the day. 

So perhaps it was another touch of fate, a gift from the Valar when one morning, when he had come across a pack of orcs high in their bloodlust on some hunt and cut them down, that he found their prey was not quite what he had expected. A ragged band of menfolk, wearing hides and furs and tattered cloth, had taken shelter at the foot of the Carrock, and they lashed out at him when he approached, still wearing the form of the bear, bloodied and ruffled from his clash with the orcs. They stank of fear and desperation, but not of cruelty, and when he came to them again the next day, as a man instead of a beast, their reception was somewhat warmer. 

He could have turned them away, seen them gone from his lands as oft he had done before… but it took only one look at the huddled forms of women and children (few though they were) to make up his mind. “You will be safer in my home, for as long as you need it,” he had said to them. The world was becoming more and more unkind, and he knew, sensed, perhaps, that they were not the kind of men to find comfort behind stone walls and walking down paved streets. They had the smell of the wild in them, beneath the fear and hurt and exhaustion, and they were like him, at least enough.

It was difficult going at first, the perhaps twenty men and women as wary of him as they had been the orcs, and finding his home filled with talking animals and dogs that walked about on two legs did not help… though to Beorn’s pleasure he found the children were not so hostile. In fact, they seemed to adore his animal friends, and almost immediately began to talk to them as if they were new friends, which, he supposed, they probably were. Steadily plying his guests with food and comfort as he had done the dwarves (at Bilbo’s suggestion, because of course he’d written to his friend right away to tell of the new development) he won their regard over the weeks. Even the eventual revelation that he was half the time a bear, and not a man, was taken fairly well, and by the next spring he had the younglings begging to ride upon his back through the fields of flowers.

Come summer he had expected to find the little tribe taking their leave of him, and it was a true shock when instead some among them came to him, asking permission to cut down a number of his trees and build a home of their own, a little ways across the meadow. It had taken him near to a week to realize that he would be quite happy to have them stay—for he had himself become attached to several among them over the course of the long winter where they had often been forced to spend days at a time in the close quarters of his home—and barely had that first house gone up than another was begun.

Their homes were fashioned after his own, and built to mesh with the land. The animals lent hoof and paw to the effort, and Beorn was pleased to see that familiarity had made the people comfortable with them, tuned in to their needs. They helped him to tend his gardens, and seemed keen to adopt his lack of taste for meat. “It would be quite strange,” one of the men had admitted to him one evening, “To eat mutton on a plate served to you by a sheep. There is more than enough to feed us without needing to hunt—more at least than ever we had before we came to live with you.” It was a point of pride for him to hear so, and to see his guests’ once-starved and gaunt faces fill out to healthy roundness. Not quite little bunnies, but still getting nice and fat again on milk and honey, indeed.

More and more Beorn grew to love the sight of their squat homes, lighting up warm and welcoming as dawn crept over the rise. He cherished the sound of life ringing about the fields, children running to and fro, or huddling close as he patiently showed them how to tend to the flowers they so loved to pluck and braid into their hair. His animals meshed with their new family well in time, the two forces working together to provide for all, and once they saw that they would not be hunted or eaten, it was not uncommon for any number of the creatures to be found in any of the little huts that now dotted the area immediately around his own larger one. 

That home was still often in use by others than himself—its ancient function as meeting hall restored first by necessity, and then because it pleased Beorn to see it used so. Now and then the urge for solitude struck him, and he would leave for days to walk the borders, but it was always there to return to, their company and fine regard, and cheers at his tall table, and a warm mug of milk set upon the high mantle for their host-turned-chieftain. He had not cared to be named such when they did it, but bore the title in good graces, and thankfully it did not seem to change their behavior towards him much at all, which pleased him more than the honor of it ever could.

With the passing of the years he taught the people—his people—all he knew. To love the land and treasure all its creatures, and to hate the evil that would cut it down. That lesson was not hard, for such creatures had destroyed their village in the deep hills, and many among them were more than happy to eventually join him in driving back those goblins and wargs and orcs that dared to encroach upon their new home. He still wrote to Bilbo, often trading the gossip of their homes and clever thoughts about their friends, and the little bunny seemed keen to return and meet Beorn’s new companions, though it would never come to pass.

Instead Bilbo sent his most hearty congratulations, as well as a packet of seeds from his own prize winning tomatoes, when he got word that the skinchanger was to take a wife—a strong, wild woman whom the hobbit said sounded like “quite a match for you, old bear” in the letter containing his gift. They were planted swiftly in the garden alongside their home, and bore beautiful, red fruit after only a single year, the first ready to harvest just as his dear wife brought their son, Grimbeorn, squalling like a cub in the tongue of bears, into the world. In all his days, Beorn had never been prouder than he would come to be of his son the day he too changed his skin for that of a beast, and took to roving at his father’s heels through the woodland trails and byways.

In time the warning tremors of the coming war proved true, though the old bear did not live to see those dark days. When at last he lay down to sleep, his huge form gone silver across his snout and around his eyes, the mournful howls and cries of his people were said to ring across the whole of the Anduin, and to the depths of Mirkwood where the elves themselves bowed their heads at the passing of such a proud old defender of the world. As one tribe his people, by then as many in the shapes of bears as in those of men, bore him back to where they’d found him, and carried him to be put to rest within the Carrock, as he had done his own people before them—the last of a great and ancient tribe, now gone forever… and the first of a new one, who would carry his name and legacy onward, into the history of Middle Earth, for all time.

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties with Beorn’s actions in the Battle of Five Armies. Book and movie canon diverge quite a lot on the course of that fight, so I tried to walk it down the middle. In the books, Azog is long dead by the time of the Company, and it is only Bolg that Thorin faces at Erebor. Beorn indeed appears at the height of the fight to carry the injured king away and then returns to crush Bolg. I left Azog as the antagonist in that scene because most people are used to that version of events, and while having Beorn kill him robs Thorin somewhat of his revenge, this is, after all, a piece about Beorn, and I wanted to nod to his canonical story where I could, seeing as there’s already so very little of it.  
He did also go on, in the books, to marry and have a son, Grimbeorn, who led his tribe in the War of the Ring. There is next to no information about his people, the Beornings, or of Beorn himself before he encounters the Company. The movie hints that he was enslaved by the goblins/orcs (which are one and the same in the book The Hobbit, for that matter) along with his people, and that he was the only one left, so I used that as a basis to build off. His lack of taste for meat and love of animals, and hatred and hunting of foul things also leaned me towards making his skinchanging a blessing from the Valar Oromë. The Valar by the Third Age were notoriously hands-off in the world, but Oromë was always more keen to spend time in Middle Earth, and it seemed fitting to have him get, subtly, involved in what ways he could.  
As for Bilbo being the crux of his fixation with shedding his solitary nature… I mean, wouldn’t _you_ fall in love with the idea of being social with a friend like Bilbo? An excellent storyteller and loyal companion, able to make even dull talk of chores and family gatherings sound like wonderful fun—if he can get thirteen grouchy dwarves to warm to him, then a lone softie like Beorn’s _easy mode_ for Bilbo!


End file.
